Mamta Kulkarni’s husband Vicky Goswami turns witness against America’s most wanted Asif Hafeez

New Delhi, March 7

The United States is battling to extradite Pakistani businessman Asif Hafeez from Britain's high security Belmarsh prison to a jail in New York after snatching a couple of Akasha drug-lord brothers and two others from Kenyan soil, according to a media report.

Those held by the US include real brothers Baktash Akasha Abdalla and Ibrahim Akasha Abdalla, former Bollywood star Mamta Kulkarni's husband Vicky Goswami, and Ghulam Hussein, one of whom turned into a witness against the Pakistani national, Geo News reported.

Only Vicky Goswami, according to reliable sources, will provide a witness statement against Hafeez after the Indian national was offered a deal by the US government to become a US informer and a witness in lieu of privileges and exemptions, Geo News reported.

The only person - and the co-defendant - who has agreed to become a witness against Hafeez at any trial that takes place if extradition is ordered is Goswami. He has pleaded guilty in a cooperating plea agreement with the US authorities and will be called as a witness against Hafeez when and if a trial takes place.

The US didn't charge him in the superseding indictment - an indication that he turned into an asset, Geo News reported.

The US authorities have refused to discuss the current status of Goswami, saying that any information on his current status could endanger the lives of witnesses. Sources say Goswami is now enjoying a life of luxury and protection from the US government, as per the report.

Goswami grew up on the streets of Ahmadabad, making his living as a bootlegger. He came to Mumbai and worked in the underworld. He met his Bollywood sweetheart Mamta Kulkarni in Mumbai when she was at the peak of her career.

He then moved to Dubai full-time and organised Bollywood events and started dealing with drugs. He was jailed in Dubai in 1997 for 10 years for illegal drug trafficking.

Mamta visited him in jail regularly. They married while Vicky was in jail. After being released, the couple moved to Kenya where Goswami became big again on the drugs scene, Geo News reported.

The case of Hafeez is not an ordinary one, and makes for a Hollywood thriller: Full of drama, action, intrigue, criminal syndicates, drugs trade, entrapments, Bollywood, American secret agents etc., the report said.

The case became interesting because at least four key characters linked with the Greece drugs conspiracy of 2004 - involving smuggling of 650 tonnes of hashish from Pakistan - and the 2014 Kenya drugs operation, also linked to India, Bollywood and Pakistan, have come out to say that Hafeez had a hand in sending drug shipment to Greece and the US, the report said.

The case is also out of a movie script because Asif Hafeez, in real life, at one stage supplied information to spy agencies of the USA, the UAE, the UK, and Pakistan. Britain's secret service even wrote a letter of praise to him for providing credible information that helped to stop a shipment of tonnes of drugs into the UK, Geo News reported.

The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) alleges that between 2014 and 2017, it conducted an investigation into the proposed importation of drugs into the United States from Kenya.

The US sources posing as Colombian drug traffickers contacted Akasha Organisation leaders Baktash, Ibrahim, Vijaygiri Anandgiri Goswami (known as Vicky Goswami) and Ghulam Hussein wishing to obtain heroin for importation and supply into the US, Geo News reported.

Baktash, according to the US indictment, agreed that he could obtain heroin for supply to the US and told the sources that his supplier was from Pakistan and went by various pseudonyms, one of which was the Sultan, who later turned out to be Asif Hafeez.

In October 2014, 98 kg heroin was delivered to the US sources, the delivery was said to have been organised by those four men in conjunction with Sultan (Hafeez).

Kenya's once-powerful Akasha brothers, Vijay Goswami and Ghulam Hussein were first arrested by the Kenya Anti-Narcotics Unit on November 9, 2014 in Mombasa on a request from the US government alleging conspiracy to import drugs into the US but they were soon released on bail.

For over three years, the four men put up a strong defence against the US extradition bid and it didn't look like the local courts would extradite them to the US anytime soon.

Their lawyers and families have alleged that the US kidnapped and extraordinarily rendered them with help from the Kenyan government.

According to court papers and witnesses, the operation of extraordinary rendition on Kenya soil was conducted by the US DEA agents and the Central Information Agency (CIA) - abducting the Akasha brothers, Goswami and Hussein on charges of drugs importation while the local court was hearing their case, Geo News reported.

Once the four Kenyan citizens had been flown away and secured at a US prison, the US agents turned their focus on the entrapment of their main target: Asif Hafeez, the Lahore-born former pilot-turned-businessman, who mingled with Prince Charles and members of the English Royal family at polo events and donated not only for the Royal charities, but also to the Shaukat Khanum cancer hospital.

Hafeez was arrested in London from his Regent Park flat on August 25, 2017 by Scotland Yard officers and American agents executing an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government, Geo News reported.

--IANS